


Triangles are Overrated

by TheQueen



Series: Fics I Wrote in A Dream [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drabble, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 10:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14042229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQueen/pseuds/TheQueen
Summary: Lance likes Keith who likes Shiro who likes Lance. It gets better.





	Triangles are Overrated

 

It starts because Shiro and Keith are both blind. It starts because after five years of living together, Shiro sees Keith as a baby brother. See Shiro was assigned Keith’s Sigma Nu Big in the beginning years of uni and even after Keith dropped out (for various reasons leading to Greek life wasn’t for him) they stayed great friends. After graduating, it was a no brainer for Keith to move into Shiro’s NYC apartment on E 29th, a surprisingly decent priced 615 sqft 1 bedroom apartment given the location.

It starts when Keith meets his deskmate at his new, fancy, midtown job. It starts because Lance is Keith's coworker. It’s practically love at first sight… for Lance. But because Lance is surprisingly emotionally constipated given his otherwise stable and friendly family, love is mistaken for hatred; friendship turns into rivalry until they find they work better together than apart. It doesn’t take long for Keith to sees Lance as one his best friend.

It starts when Keith invites Lance over for dinner because that’s what friends do when they want to become better friends. It starts when Shiro meets Lance for the first time, arguing with the doorman who insists there is no one in apartment 504 because Keith was in the shower and had lost track of time and wasn’t picking up the phone. Like fate would have it, it is practically love at first sight. Shiro sees Lance and thinks beautiful. He takes Lance upstairs and finds the conversation in the elevator hilarious. He sits next to Lance during dinner and is utterly and thoroughly charmed.

Fortunately, Lance finds Shiro interesting and pretty too. Unfortunately, after far too long playing rivals, he finds himself helplessly pining after Keith. 

After dinner and coffee and Lance is finally heading home, Shiro turns to Keith who's doing the dishes and says he’s in love. “I need you to be my wingman.”

Problem is Keith is a bit of a coward when it comes to the Big F (Feelings). Problem is Keith has been in love with Shiro since was a lil’ freshman in uni and has been carrying a flame for the past five years and never did anything about it because Keith had convinced himself this friendship was too precious to risk. 

To say he is horrified is an understatement. But in a way Keithsees it. Lance is a great guy and Shiro is an amazing human being. Of course they would look good together. So he takes a deep breath,  sets his heart aside, and starts talking Shiro up at work. If he’s going to be wingman, he’s going to be the best damn wingman Shiro has ever had. 

Of course, because love is funny like that, this has the opposite effect and makes Lance insanely jealous. Those initially feelings of interest and friendship withering away as Lance starts to see Shiro as nothing but competition (which… he’s not wrong.) 

Which, in turn, pisses Keith off. He’s jealous of Lance! Of course he is. Here is a guy who has everything he wants: Shiro’s attention and attraction. Shiro is a great guy. Doesn't Lance realize how lucky he is!

.

Weeks pass. The whole time Shiro is pining and confused why Lance seems to like him less and less every time they meet. Until finally they run into each other by accident at a corner Starbucks. There isn’t much to do while you wait in line. And it’s too awkward and rude for Lance to ignore Shiro who is standing right in front of him. So they talk. And then they keep talking and talking until Lance is forcefully reminded that Shiro is honest to god this really sweet, earnest guy without Keith's presence to remind him to be jealous.

Slowly Lance and Shiro start hanging out more and more. One on one. Lance finds Shiro slowly becoming one of his best friends. Shiro finds himself falling more and more in love.

And Keith is...just sort of left out. He still hangs out with Shiro and Lance one on one. But when they're together, all three of them, Shiro and Lance would have the bad habit of reference something fun they did and Keith just...won't be included. And as time goes on, it'll bleed into his one on one time with them. Lance will mention something funny Shiro did. Or Shiro will gush about how cute Lance is. And Keith will do his best to just grin and bare it.

Finally, he decides fuck it. He’s spent five years of his life pining, never dating anyone. Only indulging in a quick date every now and then. Shiro… Shiro just isn’t interested. He’s in the friendzone and he’s making his peace with that. Being friends with Shiro is still pretty awesome. So Keith tries dating other people. He sees where this is going and takes it as a sign. Time to move on.

And Shiro continues to be obvious. Lance sees Keith dating and is heartbroken.

One day, during one of their coffee “dates,” Lance looks particularly heartbroken. Shiro pokes. When Lance insists he’s fine, Shiro keeps poking. Finally, Lance admits the person he likes is dating someone else without saying names. He wonders, self-conscious and insecure and heartbroke, if he should take it as a sign that he’ll never find love.

Shiro won’t stand for it. Shiro, who looks at Lance like he hung the stars, confesses his love in the middle of a crowded Starbucks. 

Lance is super flustered, cheeks burning red. Problem is he’d never let himself think about Shiro that way. He has no idea what to say. Shiro says “it’s okay.” He doesn’t have to say anything. He just asks Lance to “think about it.” 

The next day Lance calls Keith bc he doesn't know what to do and tells Keith what happened. Keith realizes he could end their relationship now, could swoop in and steal Shiro for himself after Lance turns him down, could finally confess his feelings. But that isn’t who Keith is. Keith loves Shiro. Keith cares about Lance.Keith tells Lance to give it a chance. 

And Lance decides to take Keith's advice. Keith is right. Shiro is a good guy and Keith isn't into him. Time to move on.

.

Shiro and Lance go on their date a month later. Shiro takes them bowling. It's fantastic and fun. Shiro kick’s Lance’s ass and Lance is too busy laughing to care. In the end, Lance invites Shiro up for a cup of coffee and they don't do much, just watch netflix and drink coffee and make out on his sofa.

It’s kind of perfect.

Keith goes through a guys like it’s going out of style, tries on tinder dates like one would try on painful shoes. Ss Lance and Shiro fall more and more in love, Keith finds himself looking for someone who can complimented him as well as Shiro does or someone who makes him as happy as Lance does.

And that's when Keith realizes he isn’t just in love with Shiro. He is in love with Lance. And he just lost both of them.

Six months later finds Shiro moving out and into Lance’s. Keith, who can afford the apartment with his obscene midtown salary, moves because it’s too painful to stay.

Shiro and Lance feel like they’re on top of the world. Keith feels like he's scraping the bottom.

Keith stops hanging out with them, stops accepting invites for bar hops and dinners and movies and bowling and simple walks in the park. He meets a guy who's great in bed and nothing else. He wonders where he went wrong.

Shiro and Lance get more and more worried about Keith. It poisons their relationship. Shiro regrets moving out even though he's so happy to be with Lance. Lance resents Shiro for regretting and then resents himself for getting mad at his boyfriend. Shiro wonders if Keith’s downward spiral is his fault. Lance feels guilty for keeping Shiro away from his best friend.  

Finally Lance suggests asking Keith to move in. They have the space. Certainly, this is the best compromise.

When they bring it up, Keith rejects them before they can state their case.  Keith misses them, but he is too proud. He doesn't want to ruin their honeymoon, he says. But Lance and Shiro insistent he won’t, that they’re happy to have him. They keep asking and asking and Keith keeps refusing and refusing. 

And then keith loses his job because of a pretty major blunder that costs him and the company a client. He ends up on their sofa, miserable. His boyfriend (if Keith can even consider James his boyfriend) gets pissed that Keith refuses to move in with him instead.

One day Keith comes home from James’ in tears and Lance puts his food down. "You deserve better!" Lance insists and Shiro is right there agreeing, "You deserve love."

Keith just laughs "Oh really? Love from who? Because last I checked I lost both of you!"

Lance and Shiro are shocked; they freeze. They don't know what to do. Keith, horrified he’d given his secret away, runs out the door and finds himself at Allura’s who demands to know what happened and is met only with silence. 

That night Lance confesses that he had feelings for Keith. Shiro confesses he had feelings for Keith too. During college, he’d buried those feelings, certain Keith would never feel the same.

The next morning is awkward.

Lance goes to Hunk because Hunk usually knows what to do. He tells Hunk everything.

“Do you still have feelings for him?" Hunk asks. 

Lance gets mad, gets defensive. "I would never cheat on Shiro. i cannot believe you just asked me that!"

Hunk shakes his head. “No, no. I’m saying all three of you together. Like poly.”

“What the fuck is poly?”

Because, honestly, this is the first time lance has ever heard of a poly relationship. He goes home and googles it and finds himself stunned. He doesn’t know what to do with it. How is he supposed to bring this up without it sounding like he wants to cheat? He doesn't even know if Shiro still likes keith, only that he did.

They go a week not talking about it.

Shiro spends his time feeling guilty, horrified that he is wishing for Keith when he has Lance just in the next room who is so perfect and beautiful and who he adores more than he thought he ever could. Lance, nervous, decides to take the cowards way out and leaves a website open on shiro's laptop labeled "polyromantic" because he doesn't know what to do.

That night Shiro reads it, fascinated. It… it makes sense. Everything started to make sense. When Lance home from Pidge’s it’s to Shiro sitting in the living with the laptop. 

"Okay...so now what?"

Now they sit down and they talk about it: how they want this to work, is it just a sex thing or more, what to do if it doesn’t work etc etc. It’s terrifying. They’re both so new to the idea that it all just feels like a dream, a perfect fantasy. 

They want to give it a try. 

.

This whole time keith is brooding, thinking himself into a circle, certain that Lance and Shiro are going to kick him out any day now as he spends the days not at work on Allura’s sofa. He’s got nowhere else to go. He's working customer service and it’s decent, but it’s not enough and New York is expensive. He doesn’t want to go home to Texas. He doesn’t want to disappoint his father.

Then Lance and Shiro show up on a Tuesday after work. They say they want to talk to Keith; Allura wastes no time heading out on a coffee run. “Fix this,” she warns them. “I don’t expect to see him still on my couch when I get back.”

Lance promises they’ll do their best. Keith wants the floor to swallow him whole. 

Shiro starts talking, tells him this crazy idea to including him in their relationship and Keith refuses. It sounds too good to be true and "I don't want your pity." 

“It’s not pity, Keith,” Lance says. “I wouldn’t risk us,” he gestures to himself and Shiro, “for pity. Is it… is it so bad to try?”

And because Keith is desperate and he wants them and he loves them he says, “No… it… I want to try.”

Keith moves back in. They treat him so well, take care of him, love him. He starts to spend more time with them again. It’s good. It’s better than good. In some ways nothing changes. In others it changes drastically. It's amazing and terrifying.

The first time they all have sex it's a mess but they figure it out,

The first time they fight, Keith thinks this is it. It's Lance and Shiro vs. keith. It's got to do with money and that's always a relationship killer. Lance storms out because he can't handle the screaming. Shiro gets mad and goes to their room and locks the door. Keith is left standing in the hallway certain he's ruined everything. 

But that night when Keith is halfway to packing his bags, Lance and Shiro come back and apologize for getting so angry. They sit down and talk about it like the adults they’re growing up to be. They work through it because it’s worth it.  

It’s more than worth it.

Slowly Keith and Shiro and Lance figure out how to be together. It confuses people who meet them that they have two boyfriends instead of one, but they're happy and Keith heals. He gets a job again. Not as prestigious but a good paying one. James tries to contact him again but Keith blocks him and moves on.

Six years later, Lance and Shiro get married because they’ve always had that dream of marriage and kids when Keith had never liked the idea of marriage. It is Keith who insists they go throw with it, confident that this wouldn’t change anything other than how they file taxes. 

The wedding is beautiful and set in mountains because beach weddings left sand everywhere. Shiro and Lance insist Keith be part of the ceremony even if they can't marry him on paper and all their wedding pictures have them together. Three years later when they move to New Jersey and adopt, they leave their wedding pictures proudly displayed on the mantle for all to see.  

They live happily ever after. 

**Author's Note:**

> Another fic outline that I always wanted to write and never had the time to fully flesh out. I did make it nice and pretty and did my best to keep the core emotions of the story. If you guys like this concept please let me know. It's really useful being able to tell you stories like this without having to dedicate multiple chapters. 
> 
> So please let me know what you think! 
> 
> PS: If there are any typos please let me know!


End file.
